Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Local Values blog is talking about Congressman Chris Carney’s launch of a Republicans for Carney committee. Local Values goes through the contribution history of some of these “republicans” that are supporting Chris Carney and details their participation in Democratic party politics. Specifically, they point out that some of the “republicans” in question have contributed to Obama, Ed Rendell, Bob Casey, and County Democratic Committees.

These opposing party committees are very common in elections. Usually, a candidate tries to find an otherwise loyal party person who hopefully is also a high profile opposing party person and win their support publicly.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Tomorrow, June 14th, is Flag Day. A United States holiday created to commemorate the adoption of our Flag. In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, issued a proclamation that created the June 14th date. In 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress. Flag Day is not a national holiday. Pennsylvania however is the only state in the union to recognize it as a state holiday.

On June 22, 2005 Congress passed the Flag Protection Amendment (which basically protects the flag from desecration) with a vote of 286 to 130 and sent it to the Senate where it was expected to receive a large amount of support. Instead in June of 2006, the Senate shot down the amendment by one vote with a 66-34 margin.

According to Congresspedia, Republican Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain, voted in favor of the Flag Protection Amendment with both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voting against it.

The American Legion and many other Veterans organizations support legislation to protect the Flag from desecration.

USAToday carried an interesting editorial from Senator Diane Feinstein, a Democrat, in support of the Flag Amendment when it was to be considered by the Senate.

Congressman Paul Kanjorski will be on hand to present the 109th Field Artillery in Wilkes-Barre with a new, larger flag on Flag Day.

The Scranton Times is reporting that Luzerne County is not the only county with a potentially botched reassessment. Apparently, Lackawanna County’s tax records and maps are so unreliable (5,735 problems according to the article) that the new tax bills will not ship for years to come. The best scenario seems to be having the missing owner’s information found and updating the maps that don’t even show some properties by July 1 2009. The more likely scenario seems to be that the Commissioners might have it wrapped up by 2014.

The reassessment is not yet complete, with approximately 30% remaining. If the current problem rate continues, (out of 70,528 completed 5,735 have unresolved problems or 8%) Lackawanna County Commissioners can expect another 2400 problem properties.

The hits just keep on coming. Congressman Paul Kanjorski has been caught with yet another Youtube misstep. This time, what I assume to be a blogger, asks Congressman Kanjorski if he would apologize to the troops for his statements at a town hall meeting that suggested that the Democrats and Paul Kanjorski “stretched the truth” on ending the war in Iraq. Incidentally, this is the same war that argueably has now benefited from the surge that Congressman Kanjorski was against but now claims to be in favor of.

Many large news sites have covered the recent flap including the Drudge Report. The Scranton Times has covered the newest video today as well as the AP.

Gort 42 even talks about rumors of the Democrats switching out Congressman Kanjorski for a different candidate entirely.